The Warden Collection (merged thread)

[Cliff]

The problem with Warden's theory is that public and political intolerance for destruction and civilian casualties has grown faster than the effectiveness of surgical bombings. The steep increase in bombing precision that makes Warden's strategy feasible has been followed by an even steeper decrease in public tolerance for destruction and collateral damage. The 2006 invasion of southern Lebanon by Israel proved that Dan Haloutz's application of Warden's strategy destroyed the center of ISRAEL's five-rings model rather than Hezbollah's.

I agree that Israel mis-used Wardens model in Lebanon, and certainly discrimination is important. IMHO, one of the big problems with Israel's efforts is that they didn't discriminate adequately between Lebanon and Hezbollah when they did their systems analysis... and so ended up hitting targets that were used by Lebanese civilians. I think that Warden would argue that they failed to adequately find and target the leadership ring, and ended up hitting fielded forces and infrastructure too hard.

As Warden points out, the big issue is time... the quicker a war, the less likely there is to be civilian casualties and the less likely public outrage is. Certainly the "baby milk factory" in Desert Storm and the Chinese Embassy in OAF cost us in the court of public opinion. I think that the actual effects of public outrage are somewhat overrated, however, due to the media and politicians views of them.

This raises a deeper question that goes more to Fuch's grand strategic arguements... that is, do we have the will to do what it takes to win? Warden argues we shouldn't go to war if we do not. As Ken pointed out, in our current political system, it's tough to get there... politicians like G.W. Bush (whatever you think of him otherwise) who are willing to throw away their careers to do what they think is the right thing are few and far between.

Again, I'm not arguing that Warden's model is the end-all be-all, but that he is misunderstood because people focus on the 5 rings as a prescriptive solution and ignore the other points he is trying to make.

V/R,

Cliff

[Marc]

This raises a deeper question that goes more to Fuch's grand strategic arguements... that is, do we have the will to do what it takes to win? Warden argues we shouldn't go to war if we do not. As Ken pointed out, in our current political system, it's tough to get there.

I am afraid you put the cart before the horse. It is not the politician's job to deliver the political will needed for the application of a certain strategy. It is the strategist's job to develop a strategy within the limitations of his leadership's political will.

[Cliff]

I am afraid you put the cart before the horse. It is not the politician's job to deliver the political will needed for the application of a certain strategy. It is the strategist's job to develop a strategy within the limitations of his leadership's political will.

Marc-

I disagree. In our system of government the politicians ARE the strategists- that is the problem that Ken was pointing out.

Agree that we as the military must strive to recommend strategies that alleviate this - that is why Warden argues for airpower to make wars faster/less bloody.

V/R,

Cliff

[Marc]

Marc-

I disagree. In our system of government the politicians ARE the strategists- that is the problem that Ken was pointing out.

Agree that we as the military must strive to recommend strategies that alleviate this - that is why Warden argues for airpower to make wars faster/less bloody.

V/R,

Cliff

Cliff,

Then we know exactly where we disagree. Democratic politicians ARE NOT strategists (maybe they should be, but they are not). I can recommend two books on the subject:

Dick Morris "Power Plays: Win or Loose - How History's Great Political Leaders Play the Game." (especially Chapter Six: Mobilizing the Nation in Times of Crisis)

and

Erik Claessen "Stalemate: An Anatomy of Conflicts between Democracies Islamists and Muslim Autocrats".

Expecting politicians to take up the role of strategist is a short route to disappointment.

[Entropy]

Interesting discussion so far.

I think the first point I would make is to suggest that a one-size-fits all methodology that biases toward one particular element of national power is, at best, inadequate.

Secondly, a primary problem with airpower-centric solutions is what do you do when you strike all the targets on your prioritized target list and the effects are not achieved? The inevitable temptation is to go further down the PTL into tertiary targets and start hitting everything - hence you get the Israeli's striking an empty Hezbollah office in a populated multi-story building which does nothing to Hezbollah and is ultimately counterproductive. In short, how does one tell when the strategy has failed? In an environment where political concerns limit the use of ground forces, both politicians and the air forces are going to want to "keep going" and hope for some kind of success.

So, ironically, one of air power's great advantages is also a disadvantage.

[Marc]

In short, how does one tell when the strategy has failed?

Good point, and an important test for every strategy. Hitler's strategy failed in 1942 (Stalingrad and El Alamein), but he needed three more years to understand it. Are we smarter?

[pvebber]

Cliff, thanks trying to penetrate my thick seawater soaked brain!

I’ll try to give some specific responses as I get the chance. Some general philosophical differences we seem to be having:

The “why wouldn’t you want” argument. Your interpretation of Warden seems to be “given Warden might be right, why wouldn’t you want that to be the case”? This is a an increasing spillover from political debate to defense debate that I find very troubling. If you didn’t have to “choose 2” between quick, cheap and effective why wouldn’t you? Well because there are these things called the Laws of Physics and Economics… I don’t want to minimize your good arguments by painting them with that broad brush, but a warning from the school of hard knocks

The “if it’s necessary, why not aim for sufficient”? A variation on the above that I think is at the heart of what many find off-putting to Warden’s arguments. For a Navy guy I’m considered almost an airpower heretic. I have probably read more Airpower doctrine and concepts than I’ve read Navy doctrine and concepts (of course there is so much MORE of it…shame on my Navy brethren for their paucity of operational thought…). I have some rather radical notions of Air-Sea Battle that get at changing how we think about “Fleet Power” (or more broadly to the Air-Sea partnership “Expeditionary power”). I just don’t see what the problem is that makes “airpower is necessary AND sufficient to achieve strategic ends” a desirable goal?

Definition of “strategy”. I have a copy of Military Strategy by Wylie on my desk. I find it the most personally influential single source on the subject. Its purpose is stated as :

“One purpose of this book is to try and demonstrate that it is possible to study warfare, and be both fundamental and practical about it, without dissecting a battle or counting bullets or tracing the route of the nth division on a large scale map. What is necessary is that the whole of the thin, all of war, be studied. The fragments of war, the minor parts of strategy, the details of tactics are quite literally infinite. We know from the hard experiences of the physical and social sciences that if the parts are not ordered in some prior way, are not held up to some broad concept, all we can do is remain the prisoner of raw data.”

So I am receptive to the notion of transcending ‘battle’ as a concept but leery of Wardens desire to “replace it” with some as yet undisclosed ‘vocabulary”. This could just be semantics, but there is a difference to between eliminating the notion of battle, and getting beyond it to understand concepts at a higher level of abstraction.

Wylies preferred definition of Strategy is:

"A plan of action designed in order to achieve some end; a purpose together with a system of measures for its accomplishment”.

Note that it places ends first, and “war” and “means” do not appear in this definition. Also, as someone previously stated, it is something that transcends the purview of the military.

So two issues of definition: First is the apparent assumption Warden makes that the airpower strategist should formulate the ends. This is argued from a “why wouldn’t you want” point of view rather than acknowledging that at least some, if not most of the time, the desired end state is given to the military strategist by politicians, war being the “extension of politics by other means”. So there is an implied control over the end state in Wardens definition of strategy that is desireable but unrealistic.

Second, while Warden argues that means should be left out of the discussion, the fact that “airpower” is invoked implies means. It seems he wants to have it both ways, he wants strategy to be elevated beyond means to the realm of ideas, just so long as those are AIRPOWER relate ideas.

He almost makes the reduction absurdum jump, but pauses at the brink in his historical discussion about unlimited mobility changing the nature of land power and battles. Lets replace “airpower” with “transporterpower”. Taken to the extreme his argument appears to be that the ultimate form of strategy would be to think in terms of “beaming effector things instantly wherever you wanted”.

When you want to compel an adversary to do your bidding, you analyze his “system” you create a set of exactly appropriate “effectors” and you simultaneously “beam” them into precise locations in his system to so that the adversary is compelled to do what you say. If your method of compulsion is to “collapse his system” then that would be possible. The problem is, as we saw in Iraq, does “collapsing his system” actual get you to a desirable end state? If you only partially collapse the system, how do you know that your “pulse of power” is going to exceed the tipping point of coercion and not just piss the adversary off and cause an undesired vertical or horizontal escalation? This gets to teh unrealistic assumptions behind the "parallel is always cheaper" argument - a problme of not knowing what you don't know, not of "well 5 is cheaper than 6 is cheapre than 9". How do know to pick 5 for your only pulse of power?Where is the “theory of action” that actually links the “transport plan” to desirable strategic end states other than “collapse” or “paralysis”?


The “what alternative do we have” argument. Thanks for pointing out I grabbed an old JP 3-0. The newer one brings up the idea of “design”. I knew there are many that think the ideas of design are implicit in good operational art. I tend to agree, but to the extent it helps folks understand good operational art, the design metaphor has value as an alternative to overpromising on the limits of planning.

I would say to those who say “he doesn’t really mean to be as wedded to prediction and determinism as you make it sound”; if that is true than he should avoid making statements like: “It also opens another very exciting possibility: conflict with little or no unplanned destruction or shedding of blood.”

Positing that as a “possibility” is only possible if one assumes a level of predictability about the future that is known to be unattainable.

More later...

[slapout9]

pvebber, before we go any further is this where the idea came from that Warden believes that everything has to be knowable? Is this what you perceive as the the original argument?

Under these circumstances, morale was to the physical as three is to one. In fact, the physical was largely the "physical" of the individual soldier and it was almost impossible to separate the intangibles like morale, friction, and fog from the physical. Today the situation is significantly different; the individual fighter has become a director of large things like tanks, aircraft, artillery pieces, and ships. Fighters are dependent on these things, these physical things, to carry out the mission. Deprived of them, the ability to affect the enemy drops to near zero. Whether the equation has changed to make the physical to be to the morale as three is to one is not clear. That the two are at least coequal, however, seems likely. The advent of airpower and accurate weapons has made it possible to destroy the physical side of the enemy. This is not to say that morale, friction, and fog have all disappeared. It is to say, however, that we can now put them in a distinct category, separate from the physical. As a consequence, we can think broadly about war in the form of an equation:
(Physical) x (Morale) = Outcome

In today's world, strategic entities, be they an industrial state or a guerrilla organization, are heavily dependent on physical means. If the physical side of the equation can be driven close to zero, the best morale in the world is not going to produce a high number on the outcome side of the equation. Looking at this equation, we are struck by the fact that the physical side of the enemy is, in theory, perfectly knowable and predictable. Conversely, the morale side the human side is beyond the realm of the predictable in a particular situation because humans are so different from each other. Our war efforts, therefore, should be directed primarily at the physical side.

copied from "The Enemy as a System" by Colonel John Warden

[Ken White]

Democratic politiciansARE NOT strategists (maybe they should be, but they are not).

Totally agree, even those with some military knowledge or experience have historically been poor as Politicians trying to influence the strategy of their Generals. Clemenceau who coined the ultimate Civilian control of the Military quip was poor at the task -- but he had enough sense to listen to his good Generals (and to know which were good)...

Expecting politicians to take up the role of strategist is a short route to disappointment.

While that is correct, the problem in a Democracy is that Politicians believe they must be seen as doing something. That the something they do is inept, inappropriate and does more harm than good is immaterial. They will meddle, they will screw things royally and only really good Flag Officers will keep them from doing too much damage. Unfortunately, in a system that rewards survival above all else, the number of really good Flag Officers isn't as high as it could or should be.

Regardless, with respect to your initial comment on the topic:

It is not the politician's job to deliver the political will needed for the application of a certain strategy. It is the strategist's job to develop a strategy within the limitations of his leadership's political will.

Most US politicians have little will for much other than getting reelected and have definite constraints on the amount of will they will be allowed to exert by the vagaries of Congress and party politics. Add the fact that to most US domestic political concerns far outweigh foreign policy concerns and you have a recipe for military power to be misapplied, misused and wasted by trying to do too little with too few.

While your approach is the way we have done it in this country since 1950 (and before on occasion), that does not mean that it is correct or even sensible. A quick look at recent history will show where that approach has placed us...

Thus this "...It is the strategist's job to develop a strategy within the limitations of his leadership's political will" is saying that the "strategist" should collude and shave points. That's illegal in sports -- and war is more important than any sport. Regardless, Franks did that, so to an extent did Westmoreland and there have been others. The issue should be whether or not that is in the interest of the nation.

[Marc]

While that is correct, the problem in a Democracy is that Politicians believe they must be seen as doing something. That the something they do is inept, inappropriate and does more harm than good is immaterial.

Ken,

True. The propensity to do something is an important cause of the difference between policy and strategy. We will probably see more of that in Libya soon.

[slapout9]

Folks, I have a busy schedule this week but shortly I will post a few responses including some of my personal contacts with Colonel Warden. I will start with how I met him and what he considers to be one of the most important elements of his Airpower Theory and Strategyin general. It is a good story, it shows if you really listen(from a non service dogma related viewpoint) you might just learn something.

[pvebber]

Reread the article and the thread. There are several different lines of argument:

What is new about this article?

Given much of it is a review of Col Warden's previous work, what are the strengths and weaknesses of his theory?

How effectively does Col Warden make his historical case to defend his theory?

The last I will leave to Fuchs, as he has done a bang up job so far

So what is new here? What are the strengths and weaknesses? The thesis appears to be:

Regardless of airpower’s potential, it can never realize its real capability so long as it remains bound to an anachronistic view of war with an anachronistic vocabulary. On the contrary, if airpower is truly to come of age, it must do so in the context of a modern concept of war that associates the use of force as directly as possible with end-game strategic objectives, not with the act of fighting. If this is to happen, the operators of airpower must understand, believe, and teach end-game strategy as the foundation of airpower. Failure to do so will condemn airpower to suboptimization and deprive its owners of using force in such a dramatically different way that will achieve national objectives quickly and at minimum cost. To succeed, airpower advocates must stop trying to use airpower as a substitute for its military predecessors, connect it directly to strategic end-games, adopt a new vocabulary to match airpower’s promise, and become serious promoters not of machines but of ideas.

The premises for this appear to be:

Land operations have dominated warfare and the vocabulary of war is land -centric and therefore prevents unconstrained thought about airpower.

This is indeed something I have never seen argued before. The argument made is that landpower was historically used in series, and the things which occured in series were called 'battles'. Doing away with the concept of serial 'battle' will therefore free us of the notion of serial engagement of the adversary and free airpower to be used simultaneously to affect multiple CoGs in parallel.

Has COL Warden read Joint doctrine lately?

When required to employ force, JFCs seek combinations of forces and actions to achieve concentration in various dimensions, all culminating in attaining the assigned objective(s) in the shortest time possible and with minimal casualties. JFCs arrange symmetrical and asymmetrical actions to take advantage of friendly strengths and adversary vulnerabilities and to preserve freedom of action for future operations. JP 3-0

Simultaneity is a key characteristic of the American way of war. It refers to the simultaneous application of power against key adversary capabilities and sources of strength. The goal of simultaneity in joint force operations contributes directly to an adversary’s collapse by placing more demands on
adversary forces and functions than can be handled. This does not mean that all elements of the joint force are employed with equal priority or that even all elements of the joint force will be employed. It refers specifically to the concept of attacking appropriate adversary forces and functions in such
a manner as to cause confusion and demoralization.

The COL's desires seem to be esconced in current doctrine, with the exception of attributing exculsivity of action to airpower.

Unconstrained, airpower provides the vehicle to directly achieve strategic ends without the need for other forces.

What if the strategic ends require interpersonal contact between human beings? Say to gain the support of a potential ally? Why can't land or naval forces be positioned so as to take simultaneous action that directly achives stragic ends? This key premise is actually an assumption, as no evidence is provided that it is true, and it is fairly easy to conjecture situations where it is not true. (for example if your desired end state is to enforce a strategy based on interdiction of maritime contraband how does one do board and search of potential interlopers with airpower?)

Strategy is about conceiving a desired endstate, identifying means to achieve it, implementing a course of action, and deciding when you are done.

Again, right out of Joint doctrine.

b. The design and implementation of leverage and the ability to know how and
when to terminate operations are involved in operational art and are discussed in Chapter III, “Planning Joint Operations.” Because the nature of the termination will shape the futures of the contesting nations or groups, it is
fundamentally important to understand that termination of operations is an essential link between national security strategy, NMS, and end state conditions — the desired outcome. This principle holds true for both war and MOOTW. JP 3-0

Opponents are complicated entities that can be simplified by a systems analysis. (e.g. Five rings model).

Here is where things start to get contentious. The issue is "complicated" vs "Complex". When some of the "five rings" anaysis of Gulf War 1 are looked at, the sample centers of gravity (see http://www.venturist.com/Prometheus%...%20Summary.htm) are given as:

Saddam Hussien (dead),
the electrical system non-functional,
roads and bridges unable to support mobility,
military officers demoralized or defecting,
air defense unable to interfere with US operations.

With the exception of affecting military officers, those are all complicated, but not complex systems that can be modeled, simplified and decomposed into a subset of vital nodes. Physical systems that those that can be effectively approached from a systems analysis perspective. Truely complex systems - most notably social systems - are largely opaque to the sort of systems analysis that is required to predict what an effect will do. Complex systems also have a characteristic of irreducibility - they can be decomposed only so far before any resulting model is no longer useful, and you will not no until after the fact that you have exceeded the irreducibility threshold.


Centers of Gravity can be identified in the system which, if affected quickly and and simultaneously, allow the state of the system to be changed to a new, more desirable state.

Another charateristic of complex systems is that the output can not be predicted from a given set of inputs. You can "set the dials and pul lthe levers" of a complex system the same way, and even if you have modeled it with 100% accuracy, you will get different outputs. When dealing with complex systems there is no way to no way to establish a requisite list of CoGs and no way to be certain that doing something to one COg will have a positive feedback one time and a negative feedback the next. This is the fundamental problem with "effects-basd warfare" in general. In every case Ive seen thee is no "theory of action" that connects the action taken, to the desired result - it is simply a matter of "guilt by association" or "correlation equals causality" (until it doesn't).

Were it possible to create a "strategic effects machine" we would have figured it out by now in Afghanistan. Alas there is no "CoG analysis" that tells what levers to pull and dials to turn to create teh desired end state. You can lament "trail and error" but you can desire a magic strategic endstate computer all you want, but what we know about complex system theory says its impossible. Energent behavior is "emergent" becasue by definition it is not predictable.


continued in next post

[pvebber]

Cliff,

Great points. I hope to be more responsive to them this evening, but to make sure I don't put words in your mouth or build a strawman, what do you think are the key points Warden is making that are new in this most recent paper?
What do you think is being misunderstood about his other points?

What I argree with him on are:

Strategy provides the framework for finding the best means to attain objectives.

This is true almost by the definition of strategy. The issue becomes what is the best approach to strategy and comes down to Jomini vs Clauswitz which at its root gets back to Plato vs Aristotle...

The objective of a conflict is to achieve a future picture, not to kill and destroy.

One must have a 'desired end-state' that one wants to achieve. The issue comes becomes how tightly coupled cause and effect are in the 'systems' involved.

As we consider conflict, we should explore bloodless-force options exhaustively before reverting to traditional war and battle.

Almost a throw away given a desire for "just war", but important not to take to the extreme. The rub is in how you define "bloodless - force"...


What I disagree on:

The best approach to strategy starts with a future picture, determines the systems and centers of gravity that must change to realize that picture, takes into account the impact of time, and preplans an exit.

We should focus on direct, strategic centers of gravity to the maximum extent possible.

Presupposes the existence and determinability of "direct, strategic centers of gravity" and linear cause and effect relationships between them and the desired outcomes. In Real Life, there are few "strategic centers of gravity" that can be determined (implying determinism...) and the cause and effect chains between them are not identifiable, or linear.

Our conflict vocabulary flows from ancient times and traps us mentally and physically into concepts that no longer make sense, so our vocabulary must change.

How does our vocabulary invalidate any of our current Joint Concepts? Which of those concepts no longer make sense and why? How does changing vocabulary (to what, that of business and return on investment?) enable different concepts. Capabilities enable concepts, not vocabulary.

If we want to change our opponent as a system to conform to our objectives, then the most direct approach entails affecting opponent centers of gravity closely related to the objectives.

Assumes not just a linear Newtonian world-view, but one that presupposes relationships between the enemy system and our desires. Who defines "closely related"? Have not seen enough cultural mismatches in our recent wars to put this sort of thinking to rest?

Fast action and short conflicts are imperative and far less expensive than slow, long ones.

There is a missing consideration of intensity. The reductio adsurdum is that all war should then be nuclear because it is the fastest and shortest conflict.

“Battle” is at best an expensive and risky means to a distant end, and we should almost always avoid it.

THis is perhaps where I disagree with Warden the most. "Battle" is used almost pejoratively, but in its barest sense means "competition". To remove "battle" from the vocabulary of conflict is to remove "competition" because what is a "battle" really, but a constrained competition between two or more adversaries?

By removing "battle" from his vocablary, Warden attributes to Airpower the power to act unilaterally and without the "enemy getting a vote", as though our recent abaility to establish and maintain dominance of the air is a given in any future conflict.

If the other guy has an the capability to compete with you in your desire to apply airpower, how can you assume away "battle"?

And this leads to the ultimate hubris:

It also opens another very exciting possibility: conflict with little or no unplanned destruction or shedding of blood.

and no mention of the "5 rings"

[Cliff]

Cliff,
what do you think are the key points Warden is making that are new in this most recent paper?
What do you think is being misunderstood about his other points?

I outlined most of what I think the key points are elsewhere, but his summary is:

• Strategy provides the framework for finding the best means to attain objectives.
• If we want to change our opponent as a system to conform to our objectives, then the most direct approach entails affecting opponent centers of gravity closely related to the objectives.
• Fast action and short conflicts are imperative and far less expensive than slow, long ones.
• As we consider conflict, we should explore bloodless-force options exhaustively before reverting to traditional war and battle.
• “Battle” is at best an expensive and risky means to a distant end, and we should almost always avoid it.

Finally, he is arguing that:

we should at least begin with the presumption that airpower can carry out any military task... After careful consideration of a problem, we may decide that airpower will not work. That is an acceptable answer—for now.

In other words, airpower can do much more than some would have us believe, and we should keep trying to make it work rather than writing it off.

He closes with a plea to folks in the airpower community to work to sell their case, based not on technological promises but actual perforrmance.

One must have a 'desired end-state' that one wants to achieve. The issue comes becomes how tightly coupled cause and effect are in the 'systems' involved.

True, but you can still try to understand them as a system- ultimately there is a cause and effect, it just may be difficult to understand or predict.

Almost a throw away given a desire for "just war", but important not to take to the extreme. The rub is in how you define "bloodless - force"...

He is simply saying that airpower has the potential to reduce the loss of life.

Presupposes the existence and determinability of "direct, strategic centers of gravity" and linear cause and effect relationships between them and the desired outcomes. In Real Life, there are few "strategic centers of gravity" that can be determined (implying determinism...) and the cause and effect chains between them are not identifiable, or linear.

It may be difficult, but CoGs do exist - you just have to identify the correct ones. This may not always be possible, but again Warden is saying the fact that it is tough shouldn't make us give up. For example, Gadaffi probably has some things he cares about, like his life - and these would be CoGs for the current Libyan govt.

How does our vocabulary invalidate any of our current Joint Concepts? Which of those concepts no longer make sense and why? How does changing vocabulary (to what, that of business and return on investment?) enable different concepts. Capabilities enable concepts, not vocabulary.

His point is the focus on battle and attrition that is very much a part of US doctrine limits our thinking on ways to directly affect enemy CoGs.

Assumes not just a linear Newtonian world-view, but one that presupposes relationships between the enemy system and our desires. Who defines "closely related"? Have not seen enough cultural mismatches in our recent wars to put this sort of thinking to rest?

Again, I think you're taking this too literally. I agree on the cultural mismatches- but I think Warden would argue that we need to understand the enemy as a system prior to picking CoGs.

There is a missing consideration of intensity. The reductio adsurdum is that all war should then be nuclear because it is the fastest and shortest conflict.

Disagree, his stated intent is to reduce loss of life using things like precision...

THis is perhaps where I disagree with Warden the most. "Battle" is used almost pejoratively, but in its barest sense means "competition". To remove "battle" from the vocabulary of conflict is to remove "competition" because what is a "battle" really, but a constrained competition between two or more adversaries?

I think he is decrying the fact that to the US battle means "attrition"...

By removing "battle" from his vocablary, Warden attributes to Airpower the power to act unilaterally and without the "enemy getting a vote", as though our recent abaility to establish and maintain dominance of the air is a given in any future conflict. If the other guy has an the capability to compete with you in your desire to apply airpower, how can you assume away "battle"?

I disagree... the point is to avoid having to fight the enemy's fielded forces through attrition if you can. Yes the enemy gets a vote, but shouldn't we try to deny his ability to act if we can? Again, Warden is saying that our way of thinking pushes us in the direction of thought you are advocating - we're programmed to think about beating the other guy's military.

And this leads to the ultimate hubris:

I guess I don't see what's wrong with trying to reduce the loss of life (on both sides) in combat if we can do so while still achieving objectives...

Again, I emphasive that Warden's point isn't just his 5 rings model... it is that we need to change our way of thinking to avoid being focused on battle. You could say that that focus on battle led us to a bad strategy for COIN in Iraq prior to the surge... because a lot of units were enemy-focused in an effort to defeat them. Just a thought.

Great comments pvebber, looking forward to seeing your response.

V/R,

Cliff